Sylvia Plath’s Mourning and Creativity
Abstract
In this article, I concentrate on the connection between mourning and creativity
in Sylvia Plath’s work. Melanie Klein postulates that the pain of mourning and the
reparation experienced in the depressive position is the basis of creative activity.
Through creative activity, one can restore lost internal and external objects and lost
happiness. I argue that Plath’s work is an example of Klein’s idea that artists’
creative products represent the process of mourning. For Plath, art -- in her case,
writing -- was a compensation for loss, especially the loss of her father. She seems
to have continued writing as her exercise in mourning and reparation trying to
regain not only her bereaved father but also her internal good object which was lost
when her father died. Through her writing, Plath attempted to enrich her ego with
the father-object.
Keywords: Sylvia Plath, Melanie Klein, mourning, creativity, reparation
In her paper, “Mourning and its Relation to Manic-Depressive States,”
Melanie Klein claims that the work of mourning is a reliving of the early depressive
position. I would like to quote Klein's account:
My experience leads me to conclude that, while it is true that the
characteristic feature of normal mourning is the individual's setting up the
lost loved object inside himself, he is not doing so for the first time but,
through the work of mourning, is reinstating that object as well as all his
loved internal objects which he feels he has lost. He is therefore recovering
what he had already attained in childhood. (Klein, 1988a, p. 362)
According to Klein's hypothesis, the loss of the present object in the external world
brings with it the mourner's unc...
... middle of paper ...
...lath, 2000, p.
300).
Works Cited
Arnold, Matthew, The Poems of Matthew Arnold, ed. by Kenneth Allott, 2nd ed. by
Miriam Allott (London: Longman, 1979).
Ellmann, Maud, ed., Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism (London/ New York:
Longman, 1994).
Melanie Klein, Love, Guilt and Reparation (London: Virago, 1988a).
---, Envy and Gratitude (London: Virago, 1988b).
Plath, Sylvia, Letters Home: Correspondence 1950-1963, ed. by Aurelia Schober Plath
(London: Faber, 1976).
---, Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams and Other Prose Writings (London: Faber,
1979).
---, Collected Poems of Sylvia Plath, ed. by Ted Hughes (New York: Harper & Row,
1981).
---, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath, ed. by Karen V. Kukil (New York:
Random House, 2000).
Segal, Hanna, “A Psycho-Analytical Approach to Aesthetics,” International Journal
of Psycho-Analysis vol. 33 (1952).
Reading this book has been interesting and heartbreaking experience. A Year of Magical Thinking, a journey through the grieving process. While dealing with the death of her husband, she is confronted with the sickness of her only child. This book touches me, and it makes me think of what would happen if my loved one died. This paper is a reflection of my thoughts and feelings about this woman’s journey that has been explored by book and video. I will also explore the author’s adjustment process, and how she views her changed self.
The characters in Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones are faced with the difficult task of overcoming the loss of Susie, their daughter and sister. Jack, Abigail, Buckley, and Lindsey each deal with the loss differently. However, it is Susie who has the most difficulty accepting the loss of her own life. Several psychologists separate the grieving process into two main categories: intuitive and instrumental grievers. Intuitive grievers communicate their emotional distress and “experience, express, and adapt to grief on a very affective level” (Doka, par. 27). Instrumental grievers focus their attention towards an activity, whether it is into work or into a hobby, usually relating to the loss (Doka par. 28). Although each character deals with their grief differently, there is one common denominator: the reaction of one affects all.
rotted,”in lines nine and ten establishes a comparison between her father’s loss of innocence, and
While showing how brave and unselfish she was, she also showed that she was fragile and not as strong as she used to be. “A black dog with a lolling tongue came up out of the weeds by the ditch. She was meditating, and not ready, and when he came at her she only hit him a little with her cane. Over she went in the ditch, like a little puff of milkweed.” Even though she hit the dog only a little, it caused her to fall into a ditch. At last there came a flicker and then a flame of comprehension across her face, and she spoke. "My grandson. It was my memory had left me. There I sat and forgot why I made my long trip." This shows how her mind went blank, causing her to forget why she had made the journey.
Sylvia Plath a highly acclaimed twentieth century American poet whose writings were mostly influenced by her life experiences. Her father died shortly after her eighth birthday and her first documented attempt at suicide was in her early twenties. She was married at age twenty-three and when she discovered her husband was having an affair she left him with their two children. Her depression and the abandonment she felt as a child and as a woman is what inspires most of her works. Daddy is a major decision point where Plath decides to overcome her father’s death by telling him she will no longer allow his memory to control her.
...lems, such as depression, sadness, overbearing and domineering figures. The themes shared in each poem is also a common similarity, such as the example of numbness. The choice in the speaker of each poem is also important, and also share a similarity between the two poets. The idea that the two women wrote poems that shared stories from their own life is not far-fetched, especially in the case of Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy”. Of the three poems, I found “Daddy” to be the easiest to understand because of its full sentences and vivid description. Furthermore, since the poets wrote as if the speaker of the poem was themselves, I found that their poems were more emotional and gripping than if they were not. Because of this, I considered their poetry very similar in that the speakers are like-minded emotionally, but the writing style of the poets themselves is different.
Sylvia Plath, a great American author, focuses mostly on actual experiences. Plath’s poetry displays feelings and emotions. Plath had the ability to transform everyday happenings into poems or diary entries. Plath had a passion for poetry and her work was valued. She was inspired by novelists and her own skills. Her poetry was also very important to readers and critics. Sylvia Plath’s work shows change throughout her lifetime, relates to feelings and emotions, and focuses on day to day experiences.
Looking back on the death of Larissa’s son, Zebedee Breeze, Lorraine examines Larissa’s response to the passing of her child. Lorraine says, “I never saw her cry that day or any other. She never mentioned her sons.” (Senior 311). This statement from Lorraine shows how even though Larissa was devastated by the news of her son’s passing, she had to keep going. Women in Larissa’s position did not have the luxury of stopping everything to grieve. While someone in Lorraine’s position could take time to grieve and recover from the loss of a loved one, Larissa was expected to keep working despite the grief she felt. One of the saddest things about Zebedee’s passing, was that Larissa had to leave him and was not able to stay with her family because she had to take care of other families. Not only did Larissa have the strength to move on and keep working after her son’s passing, Larissa and other women like her also had no choice but to leave their families in order to find a way to support them. As a child, Lorraine did not understand the strength Larissa must have had to leave her family to take care of someone else’s
dealt with and the individual moves on. Susan Philips and Lisa Carver explored this grieving
...lmsheimer, Lonna M. "Sylvia Plath." American Writers. Ed. Leonard Unger, A. Walton. Litz, Molly Weigel, and Jay Parini. Supplement 1 Part 2. New York: Scribner, 1974. 526-49. Print.
After a tragic loss someone will go through a grieving process that will either be constructive or destructive. Mourning is a period of time when the person experiencing this loss begins to search for reconciliation and a way to deal with the sadness. They will attempt to move on, forgive and forget, the past. Freud wrote that mourning is a normal reaction to the loss of a love object, which is consciously known and identifiable. People mourning will express their sadness but will be able to eventually part from their love lost. Inversely, Freud says that melancholia develops when the sadness is inappropriate to the situation and becomes internalized. The person suffering from melancholia identifies the lost object or person with himself or herself on an unconscious level, leading to ego loss. Two films dealing with mourning and melancholia are Journey From The Fall and New Year Baby.
It [penis envy] is to be interpreted as a defensive protecting the woman from the political, economic, social, and cultural condition that is hers at the same time that it prevents from contributing effectively to the transformation of allotted fate. “Penis envy” translates woman’s resentment and jealousy at being deprived the advantages …“autonomy”, “freedom”, “power”, and so on; … it also expresses her resentment at having been largely excluded, as she has been for centuries, from political, social, and cultural responsibilities. (51)
In conclusion, Plath’s style of writing is respectable. She has a way with words that makes her poems flow very smoothly. Plath has written over four hundred poems. Instead of her poems relating to one topic, each stanza she writes discusses a different topic. For instance, in one of her poems, it talks about her father’s death and she somehow related her father’s death to the Holocaust. She did not bring any actual historical evidence or background to her poems, she just implies by her word usage. Her death was tragic; so much so that it was listed on a website titled “Disturbing Literary Deaths,” and described her death in a very straightforward manner. “Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) American Poet- Stuck head in a kitchen oven” (Alternative Reel). Plath was a great woman and deserved a better ending to her life than what it resulted.
Leenaars, A. A. & Wenckstern, S. (1998). Sylvia Plath: A protocol analysis of her last poems. Death Studies, October 1, 1998, Vol. 22, Issue 7, ISSN: 0748-1187. Retrieved May 6, 2005 from Academic Search Premier Database.
As stated above, some teenagers do have a problem to build the relationship with their parents. As she said in the poem, attempting suicide took place regularly when she was ten. Even though, Sylvia Plath did not mentioned her mother in the poem, the reader can found there is a something wrong with her mother. She did not say one word about her mother like the poem, Daddy. She does not have a companion to share her feelings, she does not have a supporter who could stop her first or second suicide attempt while she get accustomed to try to kill herself “like the cat.” This causes the reader to speculate that she might failed to bond with her mother from an early age.